Good Morning
by PoeticLife
Summary: An average day for James Potter begins with a prank and a putdown. Oneshot.


**I'm starting a collection of oneshots! They'll be mostly unrelated, although most of them will probably be Marauders era like this one. This was meant to be a Day in the Life type story (like what I did with Ginny) but I realized it was probably better on its own. Thanks for reading this, and please review!**

Summary: An average day for James Potter begins with a prank and a putdown.

* * *

James Potter woke up before anyone else that day. Of course, he would pretend to be asleep, just to make the prank that much more successful. It may not have been a full-scale attack, but he liked to have his small, anonymous revenges.

He made sure his bed was ready to dive back into, because he would probably need to. James was a barefoot fifth-year in too-long blue pajamas with messy hair. The messy hair was intentional, of course. Everything was intentional. He hadn't put on his glasses, but he could see his blurry target easily enough.

Slowly, so as not to wake anybody, James turned the window lock all the way before opening the window. Taking no chances, he gripped the bucket with two hands and brought it inside, putting it carefully on the floor before sealing the window again.

The self-proclaimed mastermind laid down in his bed and picked up his wand. As he pretended to sleep, he waved his wand, mouthing the incantation to make the bucket float up in the air.

A twitch of the wand, and the bucket, still floating, emptied its contents. There was nothing sweeter than revenge, James thought briefly.

Sirius Black woke up to a faceful of water that had been left outside all night in the cold air with a scream and much flailing.

"What is it now, Sirius?" Remus Lupin demanded sleepily.

"Someone just dumped cold water on me!" Sirius seemed unable to lower the volume of his voice.

James flicked his wand under the covers.

Sirius raised his hands quickly to catch a metallic-sounding object. "And a bucket!"

"Right," said Frank Longbottom. "And you screamed like a girl."

James didn't have to fake the croakiness of his unused voice. "Couldn't have said it better."

Peter Pettigrew yawned. "Well, after that hundred-decibel scream, I'm not going back to sleep."

"I'm going to try," Remus said. "I need a comfortable three hours more. It's five in the bloody morning!"

"Thanks, Sirius," James mumbled, turning over.

"Shut it, James."

"Never."

"SHUT UP, YOU TWO!"

* * *

A few hours later, James and Sirius made their way down to the Great Hall together. only the really early risers came at this time, and it was an unusual sight to see the Marauders, as they called themselves, up early. It was a bad sign.

Luckily for everyone, they weren't there to prank. That had been done. They were simply there to eat breakfast.

"I'm going to see how tired Evans is," James muttered to Sirius.

He nodded. "You go do that. I'm going to investigate the food."

"Go ahead, Mad-Eye."

Sirius headed for a deserted spot at the nearly empty Gryffindor house table while James made straight for three girls sitting together and chatting.

"Good morning, Evans!" James didnt ask to sit next to her. He did. Her smile instantly was replaced by a look of suspicion.

"Potter," said Florence McKay. "What are you doing here?"

He smiled. "Brightening everybody's day. What, I can't say a simple hello to my fellow Gryffindors?"

"Apparently not," Robyn Dagworth said with a shrug.

James cast around for another conversation topic, one that they had in common. "We have Charms first class today. Can you believe it?"

Lily Evans rolled her eyes, swallowing her bite of toast. "Yeah, I can."

"Flitwick will be unbearable," Dagworth muttered. "I don't mind Charms, but I can't take the midget bouncing and the squeaky voice and the manic cheerfulness."

James let out a surprised laugh, and McKay added, "Especially not at this ungodly hour."

"I've been up since five or so," James said idly. As a kind of explanation, he added, "It was for a prank, and it's not going to become a habit."

"Did the prank have anything to do with the girl screaming in your dormitories?" Evans asked.

James burst out laughing. "That was Sirius!"

"He's got lung power," McKay remarked.

Dagworth grinned her crooked-teeth grin. "What did you do to make Black scream like that?"

"Dumped water on his face. It was ice cold, just like mt revenge."

They laughed, Although it seemed Evans did so unwillingly.

"Why do you hate me so much, Evans?" James gave her a sideways look.

"I don't hate you," she replied. "You just put me in a position to be angry at you most of the time. Like you bullying Severus or constantly asking me out."

"I wouldn't say constantly," James mused. "I mean, I wouldn't call eleven times constantly. If you ate roast beef el -"

She snorted. "Stuff it."

"Did you hear about the Death Eater attack in Hogsmeade?" McKay asked.

James nodded. "Yeah, I did. We probably won't be able to go next weekend."

"Not unless they kick the security up a notch," Evans agreed. "Pity. I need to do my Christmas shopping."

"If we can go, do you want to go with me?" James asked.

She gave him a dirty look. "This was all about trying to ask me out again, wasn't it? That whole nice act?"

"No," he said defensively. "No, I just saw an opportunity and I took it."

"A word of advice," Evans said coolly, "The next thousand times you see an opportunity, shut your mouth and walk away."

"Ouch," said James. "Message received, Evans. See you in class, McKay, Dagworth."

He nodded politely to Evans and her friends and left to sit with Sirius, passing a snogging couple he vaguely recognized as Dorcas Meadowes and Benjy Fenwick in the way.

"Turned down again?" Sirius asked. "Was she not tired enough to accept?"

"I'm going to pass on some words of wisdom I heard from that last conversation to you: stuff it."

Sirius laughed. "Knew it."

The day began.

* * *

 **If anyone gets the Red Dwarf reference in here, you're awesome! Be even more awesome and review!**


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